31 Star Leaf's Ambition

Star was worried when the serpent suddenly stopped caring about her words and began to race towards a point in the battleground.

She couldn't follow his movement at all nor see what he was doing because he was moving way too fast for her reflexes to keep up.

Suddenly, the snake stopped to move like a fast projectile and started to slowly open his mouth, a strange silver light starting to cover his violet eyes until they were like two pieces of solid silver.

Star, like everyone else around her, could see what the serpent did afterward: he created another of those strange holes in the dark sky, attracting and consuming a large quantity of red and silver filaments.

"Heavens! Look!" said one of the Hunters, pointing at the serpent's wounds.

Under the shocked eyes of Star, the broken and bloody flesh mended itself with a rapidity she never thought possible. In just a few minutes what had been terrifying and maybe even death inducing injury, disappeared completely. Only an almost invisible thin scar remained on the black scales of the creature.

"Dammit", the green haired lady screamed inwardly, a look of concern appearing on her young face. This went completely against her plans!

She wanted to offer the Devil a way to heal its wounds, making it more dependent on her help.

However, the creature demonstrated that it didn't have any need for her help. The wound that she wanted to use to befriend it was gone! When she devised her plan, the wound seemed something incredibly urgent and serious, but the serpent healed it up in a few minutes!

"I need him! I can't let this opportunity sail!", she shouted in her mind, trying to ignore the fear that the now completely healthy creature made her feel.

Star Leaf looked at the devil before her, remaining in silence, while the huge hole in the sky suddenly closed up. The snake nodded, satisfied at the look of his mended wound, then scanned with his gaze the battleground around him. Finally, he focused his cruel eyes right on her.

She wavered, trying to think of something else now that her first plan had completely gone sideways. However, the snake didn't wait for her to speak.

"They are my enemies?", a young but stone cold voice echoed directly in her mind, stunning her for a moment.

"Do you think I'm that stupid to help you just because you said so?" continued the voice, mockingly. Star Leaf gulped down. She shook off her fears and after gathering all her confidence, she started moving towards the snake.

"I can help you–" she began saying.

"I already heard that from your race... however only after I showed them my power... before, they usually aren't that nice..." the voice interrupted her coldly. The girl could feel a sense of disgust in the voice, mix with rage.

"I can help you with cultivation!" she suddenly said the woman, unable to maintain her cold blood before the inquisitive nefarious look of the reptile. She didn't want to be attacked before she had the opportunity to explain herself.

"Oh? That's nice... I will take whatever you have" responded by the cold voice. He didn't ask. He demanded. He didn't use any menacing words, but he meant them. She could feel it from his tone.

"Maybe he doesn't even think that we deserve to be menaced..." she suddenly considered. Yes, maybe she and her companions were like cattle in front of his eyes, he didn't even think of menacing them.

The green haired beauty wavered for a moment. "No, I can't stop right now! This is my chance!" she thought again, trying to resist the impulse that made her shiver in fear in front of those cruel violet eyes.

Suppressing her fears, she started to move closer to the serpent, until she was right in front of the creature.

She then went on her knees and got her face right in front of the reptile. Her whole body was trembling lightly, even if she tried with all her might to stop it.

"I don't know what kind of lie Winter Leaf said to you, Great Devil, but she won't be capable to obtain the Silver Leaf Umbra Tulip! Only us from the Main Family can enter the grotto where it grows. " she slowly and softly spoke, almost as if she was afraid that the rest of the Forest Will Tribe would hear her.

"Silver Leaf Umbra Tulip? I heard that somewhere..." Darkscale thought, while looking at the girl in front of him. He couldn't remember exactly where, but he was sure that he already heard of that somewhere.

"You remember the Umbra Tulip!" Carelia tried to remind him. "It's an element required for the Soul Agony Venom Technique" she continued.

"Oh, so it has a similar name, but it isn't the same thing... it's not something I can use... so... she's useless" Darkscale responded, his eyes narrowing with disgust while he looked back at the nearby human. While this particular human didn't smell like the common stench of sweat and fear that her race normally had around them, and instead had a pleasurable flowery fragrance, he didn't like her the same.

"That's all?" he asked her using the rune inscribed on his flesh.

Star Leaf noticed a strange yet menacing look in Darkscale's eyes. She immediately understood that he didn't know the value of the plant, so she tried to explain it to him.

"Great Devil, the Silver Leaf Umbra Tulip is greatly required by the Heavenly Reptile Sect! My clan leader even used it to obtain two spots in the outer sect for his son and his niece!".

"Oh? Heavenly Reptile Sect?" now, Darkscale's curiosity was picked.

"Master, that should be a local cultivator sect. I don't have any information about it, so it should be one of the smaller sects of the area" Carelia explained.

"A sect?" the black snake wondered, trying to search his memories for this term without finding any definition of an idea of what it was.

"It's like a village, but where cultivators train and live." Carelia responded after a moment of silence. If Darkscale wasn't too shocked by the news, he would have noticed that her tone was a little strange, almost begrudging.

A tribe where cultivator trains and lives? A heavenly place like that existed? How come that he learned about it just now?

Star Leaf, seeing the surprise in the eyes of the serpent, misrepresented him and believed that he finally understood the importance of the Silver Leaf Umbra Tulip. She sighed, her heart finally at ease: if he understood that she was the only one that could help him get to that precious resource, her life would be surely safe.

"Great Demon, as you know the Silver Leaf Umbra Tulip can only be grown in a place like the Yellow Lake. Some of the more unorthodox venom techniques of the Heavenly Reptile Sect need the consumption of the plant in order to be correctly cultivated!" she said.

"I can help you get it, and you could use it to coax your way in the Sect or even keep it on your person to trade inside or to cultivate the techniques yourself." she continued.

A method to get inside the sect? Darkscale's eyes widened in surprise. He only recently discovered the existence of these sects and now he already found a way to get inside one?

That was some exaggerated strike of luck!

"Great Devil, do not trust her! Star Leaf is a snake!" Winter Leaf suddenly cried, from her bowed position. Then, under the narrowing eyes of the serpent, she realizes the terrible mistake that she had just committed.

"Oh, so what is about snakes that you dislike?" a cruel voice resounded on her head. Before she could apologize, the mark on her chest started working under the stimulation of Darkscale's Will Manipulation. The human felt her whole body explode with pain, making her emit a long and painful wail.

The green haired woman, right next Darkscale, saw the exchange happening and her eyes flashed first with rage, then worry. Rage because of the interception of that stupid brainless mudblood that put her on the spot. Worry because she realized that things weren't exactly how she believed between the devil and Winter! Winter Leaf wasn't some kind of partner to the snake, she was his underling! He also used some kind of power to punish her painfully from long distance.

"I can't let that happen to me!" she thought, looking at the girl with dark long hair being tortured to insanity.

"Mph, I'm done listening to your stupid proposals. Give me the location of the herb and I will consider killing you rapidly" said the snake, his cruel voice echoing in her head. "Do it now, or I will start with those morons behind you... if you are fast, maybe I can spare you..." laughed the creature.

"He wants to kill us all!" Star shouted internally, her face paling considerably and her body starting to tremble even more. She faltered even more: how could she leave him to kill her companions? even if he truly was going to leave her alive, she wouldn't survive! If she was left alive alone in the forest, she would surely die on the way to the Outpost. She needed them!

Not having any other choices, she finally gave up her last card. The only other bargaining chip that she had, and one of the major reasons that she dared to ask for the devil's help.

"Great Devil, have you ever heard of dual cultivation?" asked the woman, her eyes shining with a strange light. "Dual Cultivation? What about it" asked the snake back.

"I know a Dual Cultivation technique. I can practice it with you if you leave my fellow countryman free" confessed Star Leaf, slightly blushing.

She didn't manage to look at the creature right in the eye, but she believed that, with the idea of possessing her, he would truly think twice about his murdering spree.

Yet, she was wrong.

"Tsss, stupid human. I will take the technique and enslave you and kill them." laughed the snake. When she, stunned by his reaction, looked back up towards his eyes she saw that they weren't full of desire and lust. On the contrary! They were full of disgust and pity. Her mind blanked. This was the first time that something like that happened to her. She was sure that devils had the same impulses as of normal humans, especially when women were concerned! How did she know it? Her family, the Leaf family, had a person that had served as a human cauldron in the Heavenly Reptile Sect long ago. The same person had brought back a single seed of Silver Leaf Umbra Tulip when she was sent home after years of service.

"Please, I'm willing to cultivate it with you! Just leave them alone!" begged the woman. Even if she didn't do it from the kindness of her heart, no one other than Winter Leaf understood it.

Everyone around her, hunters included, believed that she was trying to save them without any other reason than them being of the same tribe.